For many years now, a war has been raged against hundreds, if not thousands of people on the Earth. All hidden from what you would normally see walking through the streets, hearing people talk. No, this is something you easily will find on forums, articles, podcasts and even on videos. This is none other than the infamous “Console Wars” that keeps appearing from every consumer, journalist and just gamers all around the world. Yet this all really started way back in the 80’s and through the 90’s for when consoles were just being introduced to homes of families.

Over the years the war has changed since newer consoles have been made and bringing other platforms into the warzone, making it to what I will call the “Platform Wars”, in which now everybody that are arguing, will try their damn hardest to find out exactly which one is the superior master race of them all.

“Praise the Lord and savior Gabe Newell”

What is fascinating, is that the idea of a certain platform (or console if you want in some cases go into specifics) being the perfect place to play your games on has made me ponder many times on a simple question,

“Does it matter where you play your games?”

Today we see games being developed for different platforms, making it almost an impossible choice as to where you want to buy and play the newest game you’ve just bought. Not only that, but you also now have to think about it if the game comes with multiplayer, DLC (Downloadable Content) expansions and even just the longevity itself.
From a marketing perspective, it’s easy to understand that they just want the money from the consumers, but buying the game and talking about it on which platform you played it on can also help them thinking as to where the most popularity exist. I for one have no problem being able to play on different platforms for a game to try it out, exactly what companies like IGN, Gamespot etc. does when videos of graphical differences come out on Youtube, comparing which one does it better. Yet there are some who will stand their ground and not listen to reason, with only their eyes gazing towards the one platform that is the best for them.

This not only goes to just specific platforms like PC, Playstation or Xbox but also for the Mobile Gaming area, in here you have the smartphone competing with the tablet. However, now that smartphones and tablets are in the same categories as laptops with the components being just as good if not better. Just taking a look through the app store you will begin to see that older games have come out in an HQ version, that has more vibrant colours, updated sounds and mechanics for touch controls. This makes it more accessible to a bigger audience, with the chance of being more successful than before.

So how come I keep pointing at this? Well it’s to show that while the technology keeps evolving and getting better with each year we pass, which also makes each platform better to experience. The war will continue to rage against each other and it’s not slowing down on bit.
Stop me if you’ve hear these words before…”PC Master race, PS4 is better than Xbox, Xbox has better backwards compatibility than others” etc. etc. For some reason we as gamers have a certain view on what makes a good game, but not really what makes a good platform. Here there seems to be more emotion involved than logic and though through logic speaking, it’s clear with today’s technology that many will point to PC always being the best to go with, but I want to stop a moment and rather look at why instead of the what. Why is it always only one specific platform that should be the perfect one to play on?

I own a Playstation 2, 3, 4 and PSP 1000. Does that make me a person who only wants games on the PS? No absolutely not, I’m looking forward to getting an Xbox, Switch and even the older consoles because I want to enjoy the games made exclusively on there, plus whenever I visit a friend who has one, we always enjoy playing together a good game on a good platform. At the moment, I also own a Nintendo 3DS XL, Gameboy SP and a PC which is fantastic for when I want to play different games.
On the go, there’s nothing better than to play on a 3DS, PSP, smartphone or tablet and when I’m home, then there’s nothing better than to play on a PS or PC because they each give an experience that can’t be put into words.

Which brings me to my argument, that even though you might only enjoy playing on a PC, there’s also something about sitting with a handheld or a controller in hand. Now that can be argued that you can use a controller on PC or an emulator for a handheld game, but I once again will only say that it’s the “emotion” that guides you and not logic which is why I really don’t care for what is the best, only why it such a joy to play on them.

Today e-sport is one of the biggest events in the video game industry. In an article back in 2016 by Intel, wrote on how Mobile Games are the future of e-sports with games such as Vainglory (MOBA) and Clash Royale (RTS). It’s a positive thought, since mobile games essentially is easy on the go, offering built-in simplicity that eliminates the need for mouse and keyboard or controllers. In some way I believe that not only can it bring people to try out a game on a different platform, but they might even begin to want to play more than on one device all the time.

Vainglory Tournament

Should all games then be made for all platforms? No, not all. That is why we get exclusive games or in-game deals for a platform it has been developed for. Each game made should always see what technology is available to best be utilized for its mechanics, a game like Rocket League will have some difficulties being “playable” on a mobile device but works perfect on other platforms. Just as there exist games like Pokémon GO or Swapperoo could be played on other platforms, but won’t give the same “experience” as on a smartphone or tablet.

However, one thing that must be pointed out and understood is that games are developed on a PC and while you can use Microsoft Touch Develop to develop on a mobile device as well. It’s easier to do it on a PC with more workspace and better utilities to use.

Developers on the other hand can have a different perspective than we do, we are all gamers, but they do also develop those games we buy and enjoy at home. There was an article on Statista in which it short went into what a survery of 4500 game developers thought was the most important gaming platform that they are developing games for. This survey was done back in March of 2017, so many more games have come out since then but at the time it will still hold up for what I’m talking about in this article.

The way I see this “Platform Wars” should be dealt with is a rather easy choice. If you choose to stick with a certain platform, in this case being a PC, Xbox or PS4 then we know it’s relatively normal to just upgrade your inventory of components whenever the PC needs to be in the race for games with higher graphical fidelity. Yet for the consoles themselves, you need to buy a newer version like you would with a newer smartphone or tablet. When Sony revealed the Playstation 4 Pro to the world, it was nothing more than an upgraded PS4 with better technology as goes the same with Xbox One X. Truth be told, the companies do make a ton of cash from just doing the same that Apple and other mobile companies does, yet it could benefit more from being able to have a specific deal with a company like AMD or Intel where you can buy certain versions of components that controls the machine and that way upgrade like you would a PC. There are flaws in this idea but it’s at least better than keeping buying the next version of a console as if you got a new patch update but can’t play the newer games unless you get it.

Does it matter where you play your games? Absolutely not, you as a gamer are entitled to play on what you like, where ever you like it. Just accept that all are here to co-exist for gamers around the world such as you and me, to enjoy good games on good platforms.

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Published by TriformTrinity

Gamer, blogger, Youtuber and lover of all film. A guy who loves to analyze stuff and from that, give his opinion about everything in form of news, reviews, simple commentary and occasionally chucking down his coffee while doing it.
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14 thoughts on “Does It Matter Where You Play Your Games?”

I’m lazy. I like the convenience of console gaming, and the upgraded PS4s and Xbox Ones interest me for that reason. That said, you won’t see me banging down a store’s front door to get either.

I think it really doesn’t matter what you play on which platform. If you don’t like playing on Xbox/PlayStation/Nintendo/PC/Mobile, don’t play on Xbox/PlayStation/Nintendo/PC/Mobile. Further, what other people enjoy doesn’t affect you, so don’t act like it does.

Me personally though, while I don’t own a Nintendo Switch, I would be more than happy to have one. I’m just not in a position to buy one. Comes from my stance of wanting to own them all.

I fully agree that it depends on the budget in the end for the consumer, but also what you as a gamer enjoy playing on.
However, what is your perspective on the possibility for especially consoles to have a deal with manufacturers so you can upgrade your console the same way you would a PC. Instead of having to buy every newest version that is always only slightly better than the last?

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, Stay Cozy mate 😉

I think there’s a difference between the Pro and the X in terms of the approach taken. The Pro is more of a slight upgrade, where the X is a more radical one.

I’m personally okay with the idea of consoles being updated throughout their life cycle as long as the improvements are similar in scope to the Xbox One X (which is >2x more powerful than the original model); I ended up going through three separate Xbox 360s last generation after all, and those upgrades were just for slight improvements.

Something that’s nice about consoles is that it’s easy for developers to know the limitations of the systems they’re developing for. If you introduce too many variables, then you’re just creating more work. For instance, say you introduced a modular PS4 that supported optional RAM, processor, and GPU upgrades, developers would have more than just the PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro to deal with. They’d have both of those to account for, as well as eight variations of the modular PS4s’ architectures (assuming they only have two optional upgrades for each part of the system).

There’s also the issue of user knowledge to deal with as well. I’ve experienced first hand what average gamers are capable of understanding, and often the ones that care about graphics possess very little technical knowledge. Introducing modular consoles would just create issues that don’t need to exist. I could imagine if I was still working at GameStop and had to try and explain how the upgrades worked…

That said, I think the folks that are interested in upgrading their platform’s internals over time already have a platform of choice: PC. I doubt many of the faithful PC owners would be interested in buying a console in lieu of a PC either. It would seem to me that attempting to court PC gamers in that way would be barking up the wrong tree.

I agree, in a world where our technology gets doubled in the power output, it’s simpler to just go with what has always been done.
Question is then if we should still pursue to make them stronger all the time or have developers try to make games that fit within the box of what the consoles can perform. Japan is very well known for making games years after the western world has moved on to consoles that still are popular in their country, A good example of this was the PS2, while we in the western world had moved onto PS3 and kept focussing on developing games that could do better, push the border of video game technology with each year, the Japanese and few others made really good games that fit well into what the consoles were able to perform at max.

It’s hard to say, because even the PC industry are steering more towards finished products that should last about 5-7 years before you buy a new one. Here I may be wrong, but that’s what I’ve been seeing when looking around the industry in my country. Consumers puts more emphasis on simplicity with products that are finished put together and fully functional at release, rather than going into the specifics on how to build a PC from scratch.
So what does that say about the video game industry when it comes to where you play your games as of today and in the very near future?

I think, if anything, the gaming industry is moving towards lesser demands on hardware. Sure, there are plenty of AAA, resource-demanding games out there (as there always will be), but the indie development sector is so robust that it’d be ignorant to say that hardware is a major obstacle.

Hell, most of the critical darlings of the last few years haven’t been the kind that demand powerful GPU processing power. They’ve been the kind that could run on just about anyone’s PC.

Oddly enough, that change has made the console and mobile markets more competitive in comparison to PC platforms. I’d expect that trend to continue as well, as long as indie devs continue making games. With that in mind, I think I’ll be a primarily-console gamer for a long time.

With the way that Indie developers have more or less created the AA games now (really came to with Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice), it’s only a matter of time before seeing more people play such high fidelity games on a small piece of hardware.
Even though the indie industry are more creative, working within and around the limitations of what each platform have available.

Not to mention the limitations of having small studios. Hellblade is a great example of what a small studio can do if the scope is narrow. Instead of focusing on making something that rivals the content of a AAA game, they chose to narrow their focus to something more manageable.

Exactly! Which is why it’s clear to see that a storm which will change the way we look at the indie games from time after is coming, hopefully it can only evolve more as time goes by. Yet, I do have my concern that the indie game industry still won’t stay the way it has been.

I think it’s all about personal preference on where you play games. It truly doesn’t matter unless you want to play online with friends or something to that matter.

I can say I’m leaning towards a more ease of access approach and may phase out the bulk of my PC gaming. I’ve been having a hard time fighting with Windows as of late to keep updated and just not bug me in the middle of gaming sessions or fight with it to get my controller.

One thing I’m really loving about consoles these days, especially with things like the Ps4 Pro and Xbox One X, the hardware is closing the gap between PC and consoles. I don’t want to get in the PC vs console war, but the tech is just becoming better and better. Consoles are in a great spot because I think, at least for the Ps4, it’s got a much more refined and efficient OS compared to something like Windows, and the games need to do “less work” to run similar graphics. Horizon Zero Dawn is a great example of what a “dated” piece of hardware can do.

Yeah I can understand that, for the many times Windows does something good, it also takes two steps backwards with bugs and glitches in the system.

Though I agree to an extend with the gap being closer for each new insallmemt. It still asks the question why it can’t go even more with its hardware, than what is shown as a medium. Still, Horizon Zero Dawn did look pretty good and the new Gran Turismo Sport really shows off what a PS4 can handle.

I was on Facebook the other day, and one of my more instigating friends posted a meme about how Android was still better than Apple I just shook my head, because I forgot there are people who STILL care about this and will literally berate you without provocation. Now I can only speak for myself and my limited experience (since I’m only one person), but I rarely see/hear people who have IPhones going after those who don’t, nor am I saying this because I’m an iPhone person. It’s just that what phone you have doesn’t affect my life. If I have your number I can still text you and keep in contact, so why would I care? Again, it’s very possible that snooty iPhone owners exist and I just havne’t come across one (possibly because I have one), but in my friend circle, it’s usually “Oh you have an iPhone/Android? Cool.” Also I have a Kindle, which is an Android. It has more room on it than my phone right now, which means I can play more games on it 😀

This is how I feel about console wars. I was a Nintendo girl when I was young, like under 10 young. I still remember the “Genesis does!” commercials and how mad they made me that Sega dared go after MY system, but now I’m aging, and I want a Sega Master System or I at least watch tons of SMS Let’s Plays so I can experience the games I missed out on. Oh, and the fact that Sonic Mania is on Nintendo Switch makes me roll on the floor with laughter 😀

What’s pretty wild is how game engines like Unreal and Unity have basically become so easy to deploy for different platforms. Heck, even deploying multiple binaries for different mobile devices has been a thing for years. I think we’ll see more of this too, where the engine knows how to properly optimize for each system, and then the only thing keeping a game on a certain system will be dreaded exclusivity deals!

It’s odd how this is still a thing. I hear about the PC vs. console folks, which I find amusing. I don’t really play games on my computer, but I would. I’m more concerned with what games I’d play rather than where I’d play them, and if I like a game enough, I’ll buy the console for it like FFVII and the original PlayStation in the past to Bravely Default and the 3DS currently.

It seems like this strange one-upmanship that’s mimicked in iPhone vs. Android. Even having an iPhone I literally could not care case and give a side eye to anyone who brings it up in that way. I also have a Kindle (Android) which is great for playing certain games.

Uhhhh crap…I JUST checked and I already replied to this 😳 Well I added in some stuff so please accept my apologies for seeming to stalk your post.